Tarsos Manual

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

Tarsos Manual Tarsos Manual Joren Six [email protected] Royal Academy of Fine Arts & Royal Conservatory, University College Ghent, Hoogpoort 64, 9000 Ghent - Belgium March 1, 2012 Contents 1 Introduction 2 1.1 What is Tarsos? . .2 1.2 Organization of this Manual . .3 2 Getting Started 4 2.1 Requirements . .4 2.2 Installation . .4 2.3 Detecting a Tone Scale With Tarsos . .5 2.4 Scala Files and Tarsos . .6 2.5 Export Results . .9 2.5.1 Annotations . .9 2.5.2 Pitch Histogram . .9 2.5.3 Pitch Class Histogram . .9 2.5.4 Pitch Class Data . .9 3 Advanced Use 11 3.1 Connecting a MIDI Keyboard . 11 3.2 External Pitch Detectors . 11 3.3 Alternative Peak Detection Schemes . 11 4 Processing Datasets with Tarsos 12 4.1 Directory and file naming structure . 12 4.2 Command line applications . 13 4.3 Scripting Tarsos . 13 4.3.1 The Tarsos API . 14 4.3.2 Example scripts . 14 A Pitch, Pitch Interval & Pitch Ratio Representation 21 A.1 Pitch & Pitch Interval Representation . 21 A.2 Pitch Ratio Representation . 22 A.3 Conclusion . 23 B Maqams 24 1 Chapter 1 Introduction This is the manual for Tarsos a modular software platform to extract and analyze pitch organization in musical audio. Tarsos can be used to automatically detect the tone scale of most music. The manual is geared towards: • Musicologists: to identify tone scales in musical pieces. Either detailed, manually assisted analysis of one piece or automatic analysis of a large number of pieces. • Musicians: to improve their intonation. • Composers: to experiment with (micro) tonality. 1.1 What is Tarsos? Tarsos is a modular software platform to extract and analyze pitch and scale organization in music, especially aiming at the analysis of non-Western music. Tarsos aims to be a user-friendly, graphical tool to explore tone scales and pitch organization in music of the world. With Tarsos pitch annotations are extracted from an audio signal that are then processed to form musicologically meaningful representations. These representations cover more than the typical Western 12 pitch classes, since a fine-grained resolution of 1200 cents is used. The Tarsos API creates opportunities to analyse large sets of - ethnic - music automatically. With the Application Programmers Interface tasks can be automated by programming scripts. For examples see 4.3.1. The graphical user interface can be used for detailed, manually adjusted analysis of specific songs. Section 2.3 contains details on how to work with the interface. Several output modalities make Tarsos an interesting tool for musicological analysis, educational purposes and even for artistic productions. The different output options are listed in section 2.5. Tarsos is open source and and runs on any recent Java Runtime. JRE (Java Rutime Environment) 5 is supported, 6 or higher advised. Tarsos is available 2 on the Tarsos website1 and is developed at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts & Royal Conservatory, University College Ghent, Belgium2 To cite our work please refer to [8]: @inproceedings{six2011tarsos, author = {Joren Six and Olmo Cornelis}, title = {{T}arsos - a {P}latform to {E}xplore {P}itch {S}cales in {N}on-{W}estern and {W}estern {M}usic}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the 12th ISMIR Conference}, year = {2011} } 1.2 Organization of this Manual This text is structured as follows: after this introduction the next chapter con- tains a down to earth explanation on how to get started. It features some basic use cases. More advanced use is explained in the following chapter. In the final chapter the graphical interface is left behind: it covers how to process large sets of audio from the command line or by writing scripts yourself. Text that is present somewhere on the GUI (Graphical User Interface) is represented by a mono spaced font. E.g. the File-Open... menu. If you reading this manual digitally the URL's used throughout this text are clickable E.g. the Tarsos Website3, the full URL is embedded as a footnote, for reading on paper. Bold is used to give a quick summary of a paragraph: the TL;DR. E.g. typographical conventions. Source code is embedded as in Listing 1.1. Listing 1.1: Source code example 1 if(true){ Console.println("Source") } 1http://tarsos.0110.be 2http://cons.hogent.be 3http://tarsos.0110.be 3 Chapter 2 Getting Started 2.1 Requirements Tarsos is programmed in Java. To run Tarsos you need a recent Java Runtime Environment (JRE) on your computer. JRE version 5.0 or newer is required, JRE version 6 is advised. To check if Java is installed on your machine use the tools provided on the Java website1. There you can also find which version of Java is installed on your machine. If Java is not installed you can find installation instructions, for different operating systems, on the same website. Apart from a Java Runtime, there are little other requirements. Tarsos should work on any operating system and is regularly tested on Ubuntu 11.04, Windows XP, Windows 7 and Mac OS X 10.7. As to be expected analysis on large files will go faster on a more recent, beefier computer. 2.2 Installation To run Tarsos you need a recent JavaRuntime Environment (JRE) on your com- puter. See 2.1 to check if you have Java installed or for installation instructions. The installation procedure for Tarsos is straightforward: you need to down- load one executable file (a JAR-file) and double click it. The executable can be found on the Tarsos website2. If double clicking does not work, please check if Java is properly installed on your system. Linux or Unix systems using the PulseAudio sound system do not cooperate very well with the Sun (Oracle) Java 6 Runtime Environment. To alleviate this annoyance it is recommended to install the PulseAudio to Java bridge. Documentation on how to get PulseAudio Support3 for Sun Java 6 an Ubuntu 1http://java.com 2http://tarsos.0110.be/attachment/tarsos.jar 3http://tarsos.0110.be/artikels/lees/PulseAudio_Support_for_Sun_Java_ 6_on_Ubuntu 4 system with an AMD64 processor architecture is available. The procedure for other processor architectures or other Unix-like operating systems is similar. 2.3 Detecting a Tone Scale With Tarsos Once Taros is correctly installed and up and running you can start detecting tone scales. The following procedure documents how you can find the tone scale of a piece of music. A more formal description of this task is how to detect the most commonly used pitch classes within a piece of music. This set of pitch classes can be a subset of the complete scale. The procedure is based on peak detection on a pitch class histogram, which is only useful for music with pitch organized in octaves. Music without octave equivalence is much less common but can be analysed using the pitch histogram which contains the same information, not reduced to one octave. In [3] the following is stated about pitch relationships and octave equivalence: \... the use of discrete pitch relationships, as well as the concept of octave equivalence seem, while not universal in early and pre- historic music (Nettl 1956; Sachs 1962), rather common to current musical systems (Burns 1999)." To be able to interpret the results one needs to fully understand both the limitations of the pitch detection algorithm used and how a pitch (class) his- togram is constructed. Knowledge about the music under analysis is also a boon. To execute this task you need an audio file with an interesting tone scale. An example audio file with a tone scale based on an octave division in 10 equal parts of 120 cents4 can be found here5. Examples using this file will be returning throughout this text. 1. Using the File-Open... menu to choose a file is the first step to detect a tone scale. Tarsos is also capable to open audio files by drag and drop. The audio can be in almost any format. In the background FFmpeg6 is used to convert audio to WAV. This is indicated by 1 in Figure 2.1. 2. The second step is simple: wait until the file is analysed by one or more pitch detection algorithms. By default a platform independent implemen- tation of YIN[1] is used, it should 'just work'. See 3.2 if you want to try out other pitch detectors. After the file is analysed it starts to play and a pitch class histogram emerges. This histogram represents how many times each pitch class is detected. This is indicated by 2 in Figure 2.1. 4See appendix A for more information about the cents unit. There you can also find conversion formulas and pitch representation conventions used within Tarsos. 5http://tarsos.0110.be/attachment/cons/200/bach_BWV_1007_120.mp3 6FFmpeg is used by Tarsos as a cross-platform solution to convert audio. It has support for MP3, FLAC, Monkey's Audio, WMAv2, Theora, MusePack, etc. The supported audio formats depend on which version of FFmpeg is used by your system. 5 3. The third step is to detect the pitch classes that are most frequently used. In practice this means peak detection on the pitch class histogram. This can be done automatically and is visualised in Figure 2.1 as step 3. The sliders modify parameters of the peak detection strategy. Immediate visual feedback shows the detected locations in the pitch class histogram, the detected pitch classes. Manual adjustment is sometimes required en is therefore possible: • To add a pitch class hold down alt while hovering the mouse pointer over the pitch class histogram. Pressing the left mouse button while hovering fixes it to the current location.
Recommended publications
  • Chords and Scales 30/09/18 3:21 PM
    Chords and Scales 30/09/18 3:21 PM Chords Charts written by Mal Webb 2014-18 http://malwebb.com Name Symbol Alt. Symbol (best first) Notes Note numbers Scales (in order of fit). C major (triad) C Cmaj, CM (not good) C E G 1 3 5 Ion, Mix, Lyd, MajPent, MajBlu, DoHar, HarmMaj, RagPD, DomPent C 6 C6 C E G A 1 3 5 6 Ion, MajPent, MajBlu, Lyd, Mix C major 7 C∆ Cmaj7, CM7 (not good) C E G B 1 3 5 7 Ion, Lyd, DoHar, RagPD, MajPent C major 9 C∆9 Cmaj9 C E G B D 1 3 5 7 9 Ion, Lyd, MajPent C 7 (or dominant 7th) C7 CM7 (not good) C E G Bb 1 3 5 b7 Mix, LyDom, PhrDom, DomPent, RagCha, ComDim, MajPent, MajBlu, Blues C 9 C9 C E G Bb D 1 3 5 b7 9 Mix, LyDom, RagCha, DomPent, MajPent, MajBlu, Blues C 7 sharp 9 C7#9 C7+9, C7alt. C E G Bb D# 1 3 5 b7 #9 ComDim, Blues C 7 flat 9 C7b9 C7alt. C E G Bb Db 1 3 5 b7 b9 ComDim, PhrDom C 7 flat 5 C7b5 C E Gb Bb 1 3 b5 b7 Whole, LyDom, SupLoc, Blues C 7 sharp 11 C7#11 Bb+/C C E G Bb D F# 1 3 5 b7 9 #11 LyDom C 13 C 13 C9 add 13 C E G Bb D A 1 3 5 b7 9 13 Mix, LyDom, DomPent, MajBlu, Blues C minor (triad) Cm C-, Cmin C Eb G 1 b3 5 Dor, Aeo, Phr, HarmMin, MelMin, DoHarMin, MinPent, Ukdom, Blues, Pelog C minor 7 Cm7 Cmin7, C-7 C Eb G Bb 1 b3 5 b7 Dor, Aeo, Phr, MinPent, UkDom, Blues C minor major 7 Cm∆ Cm maj7, C- maj7 C Eb G B 1 b3 5 7 HarmMin, MelMin, DoHarMin C minor 6 Cm6 C-6 C Eb G A 1 b3 5 6 Dor, MelMin C minor 9 Cm9 C-9 C Eb G Bb D 1 b3 5 b7 9 Dor, Aeo, MinPent C diminished (triad) Cº Cdim C Eb Gb 1 b3 b5 Loc, Dim, ComDim, SupLoc C diminished 7 Cº7 Cdim7 C Eb Gb A(Bbb) 1 b3 b5 6(bb7) Dim C half diminished Cø
    [Show full text]
  • An Adaptive Tuning System for MIDI Pianos
    David Løberg Code Groven.Max: School of Music Western Michigan University Kalamazoo, MI 49008 USA An Adaptive Tuning [email protected] System for MIDI Pianos Groven.Max is a real-time program for mapping a renstemningsautomat, an electronic interface be- performance on a standard keyboard instrument to tween the manual and the pipes with a kind of arti- a nonstandard dynamic tuning system. It was origi- ficial intelligence that automatically adjusts the nally conceived for use with acoustic MIDI pianos, tuning dynamically during performance. This fea- but it is applicable to any tunable instrument that ture overcomes the historic limitation of the stan- accepts MIDI input. Written as a patch in the MIDI dard piano keyboard by allowing free modulation programming environment Max (available from while still preserving just-tuned intervals in www.cycling74.com), the adaptive tuning logic is all keys. modeled after a system developed by Norwegian Keyboard tunings are compromises arising from composer Eivind Groven as part of a series of just the intersection of multiple—sometimes oppos- intonation keyboard instruments begun in the ing—influences: acoustic ideals, harmonic flexibil- 1930s (Groven 1968). The patch was first used as ity, and physical constraints (to name but three). part of the Groven Piano, a digital network of Ya- Using a standard twelve-key piano keyboard, the maha Disklavier pianos, which premiered in Oslo, historical problem has been that any fixed tuning Norway, as part of the Groven Centennial in 2001 in just intonation (i.e., with acoustically pure tri- (see Figure 1). The present version of Groven.Max ads) will be limited to essentially one key.
    [Show full text]
  • 3 Manual Microtonal Organ Ruben Sverre Gjertsen 2013
    3 Manual Microtonal Organ http://www.bek.no/~ruben/Research/Downloads/software.html Ruben Sverre Gjertsen 2013 An interface to existing software A motivation for creating this instrument has been an interest for gaining experience with a large range of intonation systems. This software instrument is built with Max 61, as an interface to the Fluidsynth object2. Fluidsynth offers possibilities for retuning soundfont banks (Sf2 format) to 12-tone or full-register tunings. Max 6 introduced the dictionary format, which has been useful for creating a tuning database in text format, as well as storing presets. This tuning database can naturally be expanded by users, if tunings are written in the syntax read by this instrument. The freely available Jeux organ soundfont3 has been used as a default soundfont, while any instrument in the sf2 format can be loaded. The organ interface The organ window 3 MIDI Keyboards This instrument contains 3 separate fluidsynth modules, named Manual 1-3. 3 keysliders can be played staccato by the mouse for testing, while the most musically sufficient option is performing from connected MIDI keyboards. Available inputs will be automatically recognized and can be selected from the menus. To keep some of the manuals silent, select the bottom alternative "to 2ManualMicroORGANircamSpat 1", which will not receive MIDI signal, unless another program (for instance Sibelius) is sending them. A separate menu can be used to select a foot trigger. The red toggle must be pressed for this to be active. This has been tested with Behringer FCB1010 triggers. Other devices could possibly require adjustments to the patch.
    [Show full text]
  • The Group-Theoretic Description of Musical Pitch Systems
    The Group-theoretic Description of Musical Pitch Systems Marcus Pearce [email protected] 1 Introduction Balzano (1980, 1982, 1986a,b) addresses the question of finding an appropriate level for describing the resources of a pitch system (e.g., the 12-fold or some microtonal division of the octave). His motivation for doing so is twofold: “On the one hand, I am interested as a psychologist who is not overly impressed with the progress we have made since Helmholtz in understanding music perception. On the other hand, I am interested as a computer musician who is trying to find ways of using our pow- erful computational tools to extend the musical [domain] of pitch . ” (Balzano, 1986b, p. 297) Since the resources of a pitch system ultimately depend on the pairwise relations between pitches, the question is one of how to conceive of pitch intervals. In contrast to the prevailing approach which de- scribes intervals in terms of frequency ratios, Balzano presents a description of pitch sets as mathematical groups and describes how the resources of any pitch system may be assessed using this description. Thus he is concerned with presenting an algebraic description of pitch systems as a competitive alternative to the existing acoustic description. In these notes, I shall first give a brief description of the ratio based approach (§2) followed by an equally brief exposition of some necessary concepts from the theory of groups (§3). The following three sections concern the description of the 12-fold division of the octave as a group: §4 presents the nature of the group C12; §5 describes three perceptually relevant properties of pitch-sets in C12; and §6 describes three musically relevant isomorphic representations of C12.
    [Show full text]
  • Unified Music Theories for General Equal-Temperament Systems
    Unified Music Theories for General Equal-Temperament Systems Brandon Tingyeh Wu Research Assistant, Research Center for Information Technology Innovation, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan ABSTRACT Why are white and black piano keys in an octave arranged as they are today? This article examines the relations between abstract algebra and key signature, scales, degrees, and keyboard configurations in general equal-temperament systems. Without confining the study to the twelve-tone equal-temperament (12-TET) system, we propose a set of basic axioms based on musical observations. The axioms may lead to scales that are reasonable both mathematically and musically in any equal- temperament system. We reexamine the mathematical understandings and interpretations of ideas in classical music theory, such as the circle of fifths, enharmonic equivalent, degrees such as the dominant and the subdominant, and the leading tone, and endow them with meaning outside of the 12-TET system. In the process of deriving scales, we create various kinds of sequences to describe facts in music theory, and we name these sequences systematically and unambiguously with the aim to facilitate future research. - 1 - 1. INTRODUCTION Keyboard configuration and combinatorics The concept of key signatures is based on keyboard-like instruments, such as the piano. If all twelve keys in an octave were white, accidentals and key signatures would be meaningless. Therefore, the arrangement of black and white keys is of crucial importance, and keyboard configuration directly affects scales, degrees, key signatures, and even music theory. To debate the key configuration of the twelve- tone equal-temperament (12-TET) system is of little value because the piano keyboard arrangement is considered the foundation of almost all classical music theories.
    [Show full text]
  • Models of Octatonic and Whole-Tone Interaction: George Crumb and His Predecessors
    Models of Octatonic and Whole-Tone Interaction: George Crumb and His Predecessors Richard Bass Journal of Music Theory, Vol. 38, No. 2. (Autumn, 1994), pp. 155-186. Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0022-2909%28199423%2938%3A2%3C155%3AMOOAWI%3E2.0.CO%3B2-X Journal of Music Theory is currently published by Yale University Department of Music. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/about/terms.html. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/journals/yudm.html. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. The JSTOR Archive is a trusted digital repository providing for long-term preservation and access to leading academic journals and scholarly literature from around the world. The Archive is supported by libraries, scholarly societies, publishers, and foundations. It is an initiative of JSTOR, a not-for-profit organization with a mission to help the scholarly community take advantage of advances in technology. For more information regarding JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. http://www.jstor.org Mon Jul 30 09:19:06 2007 MODELS OF OCTATONIC AND WHOLE-TONE INTERACTION: GEORGE CRUMB AND HIS PREDECESSORS Richard Bass A bifurcated view of pitch structure in early twentieth-century music has become more explicit in recent analytic writings.
    [Show full text]
  • Download the Just Intonation Primer
    THE JUST INTONATION PPRIRIMMEERR An introduction to the theory and practice of Just Intonation by David B. Doty Uncommon Practice — a CD of original music in Just Intonation by David B. Doty This CD contains seven compositions in Just Intonation in diverse styles — ranging from short “fractured pop tunes” to extended orchestral movements — realized by means of MIDI technology. My principal objectives in creating this music were twofold: to explore some of the novel possibilities offered by Just Intonation and to make emotionally and intellectually satisfying music. I believe I have achieved both of these goals to a significant degree. ——David B. Doty The selections on this CD pro­­cess—about synthesis, decisions. This is definitely detected in certain struc- were composed between sampling, and MIDI, about not experimental music, in tures and styles of elabora- approximately 1984 and Just Intonation, and about the Cageian sense—I am tion. More prominent are 1995 and recorded in 1998. what compositional styles more interested in result styles of polyphony from the All of them use some form and techniques are suited (aesthetic response) than Western European Middle of Just Intonation. This to various just tunings. process. Ages and Renaissance, method of tuning is com- Taken collectively, there It is tonal music (with a garage rock from the 1960s, mendable for its inherent is no conventional name lowercase t), music in which Balkan instrumental dance beauty, its variety, and its for the music that resulted hierarchic relations of tones music, the ancient Japanese long history (it is as old from this process, other are important and in which court music gagaku, Greek as civilization).
    [Show full text]
  • Shifting Exercises with Double Stops to Test Intonation
    VERY ROUGH AND PRELIMINARY DRAFT!!! Shifting Exercises with Double Stops to Test Intonation These exercises were inspired by lessons I had from 1968 to 1970 with David Smiley of the San Francisco Symphony. I don’t have the book he used, but I believe it was one those written by Dounis on the scientific or artist's technique of violin playing. The exercises were difficult and frustrating, and involved shifting and double stops. Smiley also emphasized routine testing notes against other strings, and I also found some of his tasks frustrating because I couldn’t hear intervals that apparently seemed so familiar to a professional musician. When I found myself giving violin lessons in 2011, I had a mathematical understanding of why it was so difficult to hear certain musical intervals, and decided not to focus on them in my teaching. By then I had also developed some exercises to develop my own intonation. These exercises focus entirely on what is called the just scale. Pianos use the equal tempered scale, which is the predominate choice of intonation in orchestras and symphonies (I NEED VERIFICATION THAT THIS IS TRUE). It takes many years and many types of exercises and activities to become a good violinist. But I contend that everyone should start by mastering the following double stops in “just” intonation: 1. Practice the intervals shown above for all possible pairs of strings on your violin or viola. Learn the first two first, then add one interval at a time. They get harder to hear as you go down the list for reasons having to do with the fractions: 1/2, 2/3, 3/4, 3/5, 4/5, 5/6.
    [Show full text]
  • Pitch-Class Set Theory: an Overture
    Chapter One Pitch-Class Set Theory: An Overture A Tale of Two Continents In the late afternoon of October 24, 1999, about one hundred people were gathered in a large rehearsal room of the Rotterdam Conservatory. They were listening to a discussion between representatives of nine European countries about the teaching of music theory and music analysis. It was the third day of the Fourth European Music Analysis Conference.1 Most participants in the conference (which included a number of music theorists from Canada and the United States) had been looking forward to this session: meetings about the various analytical traditions and pedagogical practices in Europe were rare, and a broad survey of teaching methods was lacking. Most felt a need for information from beyond their country’s borders. This need was reinforced by the mobility of music students and the resulting hodgepodge of nationalities at renowned conservatories and music schools. Moreover, the European systems of higher education were on the threshold of a harmoni- zation operation. Earlier that year, on June 19, the governments of 29 coun- tries had ratifi ed the “Bologna Declaration,” a document that envisaged a unifi ed European area for higher education. Its enforcement added to the urgency of the meeting in Rotterdam. However, this meeting would not be remembered for the unusually broad rep- resentation of nationalities or for its political timeliness. What would be remem- bered was an incident which took place shortly after the audience had been invited to join in the discussion. Somebody had raised a question about classroom analysis of twentieth-century music, a recurring topic among music theory teach- ers: whereas the music of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries lent itself to general analytical methodologies, the extremely diverse repertoire of the twen- tieth century seemed only to invite ad hoc approaches; how could the analysis of 1.
    [Show full text]
  • Helmholtz's Dissonance Curve
    Tuning and Timbre: A Perceptual Synthesis Bill Sethares IDEA: Exploit psychoacoustic studies on the perception of consonance and dissonance. The talk begins by showing how to build a device that can measure the “sensory” consonance and/or dissonance of a sound in its musical context. Such a “dissonance meter” has implications in music theory, in synthesizer design, in the con- struction of musical scales and tunings, and in the design of musical instruments. ...the legacy of Helmholtz continues... 1 Some Observations. Why do we tune our instruments the way we do? Some tunings are easier to play in than others. Some timbres work well in certain scales, but not in others. What makes a sound easy in 19-tet but hard in 10-tet? “The timbre of an instrument strongly affects what tuning and scale sound best on that instrument.” – W. Carlos 2 What are Tuning and Timbre? 196 384 589 amplitude 787 magnitude sample: 0 10000 20000 30000 0 1000 2000 3000 4000 time: 0 0.23 0.45 0.68 frequency in Hz Tuning = pitch of the fundamental (in this case 196 Hz) Timbre involves (a) pattern of overtones (Helmholtz) (b) temporal features 3 Some intervals “harmonious” and others “discordant.” Why? X X X X 1.06:1 2:1 X X X X 1.89:1 3:2 X X X X 1.414:1 4:3 4 Theory #1:(Pythagoras ) Humans naturally like the sound of intervals de- fined by small integer ratios. small ratios imply short period of repetition short = simple = sweet Theory #2:(Helmholtz ) Partials of a sound that are close in frequency cause beats that are perceived as “roughness” or dissonance.
    [Show full text]
  • Memory and Production of Standard Frequencies in College-Level Musicians Sarah E
    University of Massachusetts Amherst ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014 2013 Memory and Production of Standard Frequencies in College-Level Musicians Sarah E. Weber University of Massachusetts Amherst Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.umass.edu/theses Part of the Cognition and Perception Commons, Fine Arts Commons, Music Education Commons, and the Music Theory Commons Weber, Sarah E., "Memory and Production of Standard Frequencies in College-Level Musicians" (2013). Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014. 1162. Retrieved from https://scholarworks.umass.edu/theses/1162 This thesis is brought to you for free and open access by ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. It has been accepted for inclusion in Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014 by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Memory and Production of Standard Frequencies in College-Level Musicians A Thesis Presented by SARAH WEBER Submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Massachusetts Amherst in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF MUSIC September 2013 Music Theory © Copyright by Sarah E. Weber 2013 All Rights Reserved Memory and Production of Standard Frequencies in College-Level Musicians A Thesis Presented by SARAH WEBER _____________________________ Gary S. Karpinski, Chair _____________________________ Andrew Cohen, Member _____________________________ Brent Auerbach, Member _____________________________ Jeff Cox, Department Head Department of Music and Dance DEDICATION For my parents and Grandma. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank Kristen Wallentinsen for her help with experimental logistics, Renée Morgan for giving me her speakers, and Nathaniel Liberty for his unwavering support, problem-solving skills, and voice-over help.
    [Show full text]
  • Playing Music in Just Intonation: a Dynamically Adaptive Tuning Scheme
    Karolin Stange,∗ Christoph Wick,† Playing Music in Just and Haye Hinrichsen∗∗ ∗Hochschule fur¨ Musik, Intonation: A Dynamically Hofstallstraße 6-8, 97070 Wurzburg,¨ Germany Adaptive Tuning Scheme †Fakultat¨ fur¨ Mathematik und Informatik ∗∗Fakultat¨ fur¨ Physik und Astronomie †∗∗Universitat¨ Wurzburg¨ Am Hubland, Campus Sud,¨ 97074 Wurzburg,¨ Germany Web: www.just-intonation.org [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] Abstract: We investigate a dynamically adaptive tuning scheme for microtonal tuning of musical instruments, allowing the performer to play music in just intonation in any key. Unlike other methods, which are based on a procedural analysis of the chordal structure, our tuning scheme continually solves a system of linear equations, rather than relying on sequences of conditional if-then clauses. In complex situations, where not all intervals of a chord can be tuned according to the frequency ratios of just intonation, the method automatically yields a tempered compromise. We outline the implementation of the algorithm in an open-source software project that we have provided to demonstrate the feasibility of the tuning method. The first attempts to mathematically characterize is particularly pronounced if m and n are small. musical intervals date back to Pythagoras, who Examples include the perfect octave (m:n = 2:1), noted that the consonance of two tones played on the perfect fifth (3:2), and the perfect fourth (4:3). a monochord can be related to simple fractions Larger values of mand n tend to correspond to more of the corresponding string lengths (for a general dissonant intervals. If a normally consonant interval introduction see, e.g., Geller 1997; White and White is sufficiently detuned from just intonation (i.e., the 2014).
    [Show full text]